Celebrating Georgia

February is almost over. Just a few more hours to what has been the shortest and longest month all at once. The snow still blankets everything. It's been a week or so since fresh has fallen so everything is dirty and grey outside. I can't wait till the glaciers encroaching onto the edges of all the streets have receded and gone, the sun comes back, and hints of green start peaking though the mud. This month has been a whirlwind: birthdays, Valentine's Day, company, pre-school, play-dates, lobbying for midwifery at The Capitol, parent-teacher conferences (Normy's doing great), never-ending laundry, a few lazy weekends... and of course there is no end in sight.

Did I mention birthdays? Saturday was Georgia's. It's happened. She's not a baby an longer. My darling girl is two. What a thrill. Toddlerhood suits her. She's witty and sassy and full of exuberance. Sure she's sweet, but really this little force of nature is out to claim her place in the world... all ready.

Where did my fat-faced smiling little cherub go? These days she's a climbing, talking, jumping, dancing machine.

She loves blueberries and Nutella on toast (choc-oh-but toast as she says) the best. I'll never forget the day not too long ago when I came down stairs to find her sitting in front of a ten pound bag of frozen blueberries that she had managed to drag out of our bottom-bin freezer and dump into a HUGE pile on the floor. She was eating them gleefully one at a time and covered from head to toe in their juice. She enjoys every kind of cheese...even the stinky kind. She is the child I can count on to finish her plate at every meal. She prefers juice to milk. And has finally learned to pass me her sippy cup in the car as opposed to just throwing it down when she's through. She hollers up to me, "Take it!!!" And I remind her, "How do you say that nicely?"

"PLEASE!" I hear from the back.

She loves movies, and could spend all day watching Cinderella or Caillou. She asks for both all day long. She isn't really into toys. She would much rather climb up in your lap and chat your ear off. She wants to be where the people are. Of course, she does love her babies and every night she has to go to sleep with "Pink Baby" and "Other Baby." She tucks one doll under each arm and clutches a yellow wooden circle from a shape puzzle in one hand (her apple) and a plastic scoop of orange play-ice cream in her other hand (her orange). Every night. It's her ritual. After we read books and before her prayer she demands to be rocked a bit. I must wrap her in her blanket and she snuggles into me while I rock back and forth, back and forth in the dark with her. The past few weeks she has started requesting that I sing "rock a-bye baby" to her during the "rock-a-bit." So, I humor her with a few rounds in my shaky voice and she goes to bed after with no complaints.

She is potty trained, speaking in full sentences, and jumping with two feet. Everything she does is full throttle. I can't keep her from climbing all over the furniture. She starts the day and immediately wants breakfast. She'd prefer a cup of coffee if I would let her. When we drop Normy off at school she tells him, "I love you, we be back soon, Jacob!" When something stumps her (a rare occurrence) she often asks him for help. "Jacob! I need help!" Georgia adores her big brother. They take naps at the same time, but in different rooms. If she wakes up before him it is nearly impossible to keep her from trying to break down the door to get him up: "Wake up Jacob!"

I don't know what I would do if she wasn't so polite and sweet to off-set how demanding and willful she is. She often resists me but does so by saying, "No thank you, Mommy! No thank you, Mommy!" When she is in the mood to be agreeable she says, "OK Mommy. That's good." She almost always says please, thank you, and even you're welcome. Amazing.

She's obsessive and single minded. For instance she only wants to wear things that are the color orange. She will proudly tell you "Orange is my favorite color!" There have been several times where she has worn her favorite orange jammies for days in a row, because that was the only orange outfit she owned. Thank goodness her Grandma and Aunt Kate came through with some orange clothes for her birthday, so now we have a little more orange in the rotation. If I can get her dressed in something other than orange it is only an outfit of her choosing. I have to hold her up in front of the clothes in her closet until she has chosen just the right pieces for the day. Usually a dress.

Her favorite books are If You Give a Pig a Party, Curious George and the Puppies, and Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Splishy-Sploshy. She loves to be read to and loves to say the lines she knows. She has memorized all her letters and most of their sounds. She loves to count while going up and down stairs and can go as high as twelve. I pretty much think she is a genius.

I love almost every minute of being Georgia's Mommy. Even the challenging minutes with her usually make me laugh later. The child has more personality in her pinky finger than most adults do at all. And now she is two! I started noticing the day before as the anniversary came close. I would look at the clock and think, "Two years ago I was jokingly telling people at dinner that I was in labor." Or, "Two years ago we had just arrived at the birth center; I started pushing; or I was holding her in my arms waiting for her Daddy to get there." Her birth was a crazy whirl-wind... it's no surprise that her life has been the same.

Happy birthday, Georgia Elizabeth. I wish that I would be able to remember every moment of these sweet days getting to be your Mommy and watching you unfold into the amazing little person that you are. I adore you. I treasure you. And I can't wait to wake up tomorrow and spend more time with you... especially if your brother would just let me sleep in past five am!

Two Years in Pictures